Beelink GS1 6K Allwinner H6 Android 7.1 TV Box Review

Beelink GS1 Review

Once in a while a TV box comes along with something new, and today it’s the Beelink GS1 6K Allwinner H6 Android 7.1 TV Box. This is the first 6K Android TV box for 2017 and it runs on the new Allwinner CPU and hardware, so in my usual style I’ll be going through its hardware and features along with benchmark scores and user experience comments.

Difference in Hardware

The Beelink GS1 sports the new Allwinner H6 CPU with is a quad core (4X) CPU running up to 1.8 GHz. Most Amlogic S912 TV box boxes carry the ARM octa core cortex A53 CPU that only reaches up to 1.5 GHz. The Alwinner H6 however has a maximum CPU clock range of up to 1.8 Ghz with support for the Mali T720 MP2 ( dual core ) GPU running up to 650 Mhz. It runs on 2GB of RAM, the DDR type has not been revealed, and 16GB of internal storage. Now looking at these specs and from experience with box boxes with higher specs, you might take Beelink GS1 for granted as in the hardware world, more powerful hardware equals better performance and a better user experience. However, this is not the case in this instance, software optimization comes to the forefront as I have seen the Beelink GS1 out perform boxes with much higher benchmarks.

Software optimization is key

So in the Beelink GS1 I experienced three things different from the other S912 TV box that proves my point. First was my experience with the 4K video samples. The box was able to play all of my 4K video samples with the exception of 1 Jellyfish video at 400 Mbps bit-rate. I don’t know if the issue was with the player itself or the software optimization because in the Zidoo H6 it ran perfectly. The second thing I noticed different was that YouTube could now play in 2K quality, something Amlogic S912 boxes has not been able to achieve or implement if I am mistaken. The third thing I noticed is that the root and permissions issue in most of the rockchip boxes where I couldn’t use key mapping apps to play Android games that require touch screen function was fixed, and I can now play any Android game and I mean any Android game using a regular gamepad and a key mapping apps.

Entertainment the essence of TV Boxes

Well one thing on this box that didn’t change was the ability to watch free movies and TV series. None of these services come pre-installed on the box, but you can easily install them from the Google Play Store. I installed Kodi and ran some third party addons and watched free movies and TV series for days. I also installed some movie streaming APK’s, these also ran great with unlimited streams of movies and TV shows. I tried a new application called Stremio. Stremio is an exciting new platform that has similar features like Kodi where you can install addons. Addons are much easier to install than Kodi simply click a link and and it’s done. The interface is also easier to use than Kodi, similar to what you would see on Android TV boxes.

Benchmarks

Antutu – 42595

Geekbench4 – single core – 682 multi core – 1606

Ice Storm Extreme – 4236

RAM copy – 3315 MB/s

ROM speed – read 74 MB/s and write 41 MB/s

Conclusion and user experience

After testing and using the Beelink GS1 to watch movies and to play games, the Beelink GS1 passed most of my test with the exception of some rendering issues on one of my 4K video samples at 400 Mbps bitrate. The box did not overheat, and it even ran cooler when I used the new Cold Cool cooling fan especially designed to cool TV boxes and routers. As for play 6K videos I was not able to find and play any samples as files were too large and the format was not in MP4 format. All in all the the Beelink GS1 is a good TV box to buy and remember to look out for future updates from Beelink.